April Meeting Wrap-up

The Book Buddies Book Club met yesterday afternoon to discuss our April book, Calvin Coconut: Trouble Magnet by Graham Salisbury. We had a great discussion followed by sand art!

We talked a lot about Calvin, who he is as a person and why he attracts so much trouble. We were split on whether or not he creates the trouble for himself by making poor choices or whether or not trouble finds him as he maintains. There seem to be examples of both in the story. We agreed that he might not be as much of a troublemaker if his dad were still around. He has so much pressure to be responsible and the "man of the house" that it's easy for him to get a little bit lost.

We liked Mr. Purdy and his boot-camp-style class and class rules. We agreed that it was nice of him not to send Calvin to the principal's office on the first day of school but to give him a chance to straighten out and make him a class greeter instead as a punishment.

We talked about the different Hawaiian foods in the story and what we might like to try and what we might be afraid to try. We also talked about foods in our lives that other people might find a little bit strange including gray sausage and chourico (something I was first introduced to after moving to Newport).

Finally we all agreed that Tito was a bully and that Calvin didn't always handle the situations he found himself in correctly. He never told an adult in his life what was going on and he never stood up for himself. We all thought that he should have handled the bullying differently.

Overall we mostly enjoyed reading Calvin Coconut: Trouble Magnet and look forward to reading more of his adventures in future books!

Following our discussion we made sand art and did a Hawaiian word search. It was a great meeting and thanks to all the Book Buddies members who came!